When Will Retirement Planning Be A Thing of The Past?

THE BIG THING I WANT YOU TO KNOW:

Some say retirement planning is slipping into the past because we’re living longer, more active lives and we shouldn’t be saving all the good stuff in life for when it’s too late. I argue the opposite… but, it’s about the approach. Retirement planning is evolving not disappearing.

is the concept of retirement becoming obsolete? actually the opposite is true.

Among industry leaders, the question of needing traditional retirement planning has bubbled up and is being examined for its relevancy. Just this week I caught an article in Forbes about “retiring the practice of retirement planning”.

I’ve gotta hand it to the journalist for penning a cute play on words, but there’s a larger topic at hand that deserves to be explored. And whether you’re 25 or 65, we need to define...or maybe redefine retirement. I know you’re saying “Chris, this is pretty cut and dry. There’s already a definition of retirement and it’s not complicated.”

Far beyond the dictionary standard, everyone has an individual definition and picture of retirement and I’ll tell you that the two aren’t mutually exclusive.

prioritizing our financial health for our dreams will always be a necessity in life — so don’t believe the headlines that retirement planning is going anywhere. retirement is only evolving.

(This elderly lady hugging a leaf is as close to a picture of how I want your retirement to look and feel as I can imagine.)

retirement is a social construct #deepthoughts

When I first joined the financial planning industry, I sat in on a lecture and the speaker said something that has stuck to me like glue ever since.

“Retirement is simply the time when you get to choose what you want to do without money being a factor. Essentially, you could still be working and be retired.”

WHOA. Did that grab anyone else?

It’s been a huge mindset shift for me and it’s influenced the way I advise people on their personal financial planning picture.

Maybe your strategy is that you’re going to work until you can’t work anymore, and as you’re exiting your retirement party, whatever’s in your account is it. Instead of basing it on an actual dream that you’re going for, where ever you land, you land.

Hey, you know who you are and ZERO JUDGMENT. (Trust me, I’m the last person in the world to judge others financial foibles.)

Passively letting the chips fall where they may isn’t going to take you to the places you’ve dreamed.

If that’s how you’ve defined retirement, I understand why the conversation about retirement becoming outdated is on the rise. But, our approach to retirement is different.

Retirement should be a time in life when money is no longer a necessity.

retirement has evolved overtime and we must adapt to reach our dreams

Many of us, myself included, want to live in the now and don’t want to wait until retirement to take the Alaskan cruise or drive that RV across the country.

Chalk it up to impatience, but there’s an entire generation that’s been inspired by books like “The Four-Hour Work Week” and thought leaders who are creative enough to forge livings for themselves outside of the proverbial 40-hour week grind. Even if you’re not the type who’s ready to sell your home and live in a beach hammock, there are still things we want to experience with our children before they get too cool and outgrow us.

According to previous generations, the magic universally accepted age for retirement was 55. Most people I talk to today realistically expect to work until their late-60s or even their 70s… or until the locks have changed on the office front doors. : )

Because the life expectancy has stretched, so has the working phase of life. Let’s learn to approach retirement with a better strategy rather than consider retiring the idea as a whole.

Since retirement is being delayed in today’s culture, the notion that we’ll have three wonderful decades to travel the world and be fancy-free needs some retooling too.

Retirement planning is more than figuring out how to stop working— it’s planning to make sure you live out your dreams.

we’re doling out FINANCIAL freedom and want to give you an invitation to a better approach to retirement planning

With all the unknowns and surprises life likes to throw at us with health, home repair, and job security, we don’t know where we’ll all be when that time comes (or if we’ll ever truly be fancy-free). But if you have a financial plan that accounts for every eventuality, you’re applying intentionality to those dreams.

No matter when you hit retirement, you still have dreams for your golden years. Those dreams just don’t magically come to fruition one day, they need to the planned.

Our approach to retirement planning is focused on building a financial plan that works despite what happens in life. That means your strategy is equipped to handle a market drop, an unexpected emergency or leverage a surprise blessing!

Is Your Money Dynamic?

Good financial planning isn’t always about how much money you have, it’s also about where you have it. When your money has a strategy that is flexible you can ensure you reach your dreams despite what may happen in life.

You and I cannot, in any way, predict what the market is going to do. Accept the reality that we’re in the middle of a gift… take this opportunity of exhale watching the market, and choose to build your plan to handle any change!